It's a quiet Sunday afternoon. A cool, almost freezing wind keeps swirling into the room through the window I keep open even though my whole body is numbed by the coldness.
Lost as I am in deep thought, I delve into the intense swelling waves of emotions that keep rolling along the shores of my whole being. Earlier, I went to make myself a cup of tea and went back into my room... my feet took me to the window, and as I stood there blankly looking out at the grey and overcast horizon, I caught a glimpse of two men by the building's large rubbish bins in one corner of the parking lot. I gazed down at them with sudden interest and watched as they seemed to be looking for something inside the bins. First I took in the men's appearance... They were wearing caps so that from where I was standing I could never really see their faces clearly, but they looked rather young, no more than 30. One of them retrieved a large bag from the bin and found in it many electrical cords and other discarted battery leads, which he proceeded to shove into his own backpack. The other man was busy looking into the other bin... sifting through all the rubbish in a very expert way, at times throwing something of interest to his friend who would swiftly shove it inside his backpack.
Scavengers of modern times, I thought to myself as I observed the two men from the window... I grew so fascinated by the scene that I forgot everything else as I watched them carry on their scavenging expedition.
At some point, one of them found discarted bright yellow vests council as well as construction workers often use when working outside. The first thing the man did was check the pockets, of course. As they were empty, he threw them aside... and then hesitated for a second or two before pulling one of them back to him to try it on. I watched that man try on the bright yellow vest just the same way people do in a clothing store. He seemed happy with it because he kept it on and then threw the other vest at his friend, who proceeded to try it on as well. Suddenly, they no longer looked so obvious as scavengers... and people who passed them by no longer threw puzzled glances at them. No, they simply thought they must be workers of some sort because of the yellow vests, you see.
I grew so fascinated by what I was watching that I didn't even hear my mother come into my room. Standing at the threshold she said: "What are you looking at so intently, hmm?"
I just smiled back at her and said: "I'm watching these two men taking stuff out of the bins, it's fascinating." My mother gave me a perplexed look, but soon enough she was standing next to me to have a glance herself... and at once she, too, was watching them as they carried on exploring what they could salvage from others' discarted things. It went on for a while, and then the two men picked up their bulging backpacks before disappearing as suddenly as they'd appeared.
They left no mess behind, careful to put everything back as it was, and truly no one could have known they'd ever been near those bins.
Another thing that shocked me although it shouldn't really surprise me... it's the amount of stuff people just throw away even though it probably could be fixed easily. Some things even looked brand new, but I guess people keep throwing stuff out to make room for 'newer' things. And then looking at these two scavengers working so seamlessly as a team reminded me of the natural order or chain of nature... In nature, you get the hunter-type of animal that will catch the prey, eat what it needs from it and discart the rest while other animals then come into the picture to finish off the rest, etc... In the case of human beings, it seems that we have our very own food chain within the species itself. Or something of the sort...
It seemed so stupid to me that apparently it's illegal to take things out of people's bins. I mean, why not? If you choose to throw things out, and if others could still have use of them in some ways, then why not allow for it? No... apparently it's not proper to allow for that because for some reason you have a 'right' to own your own rubbish till it's collected by 'officials' or something...
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